Iraq PM orders removal of British-made fake bomb detectors

The scene of the car bomb attack in the Karrada-Dakhil district of southern Baghdad, Iraq. Photograph: Xinhua/Barcroft Images. Martin Chulov in Baghdad. Monday 4 July 2016 13.35 EDT Last modified on Monday 4 July 2016 17.38 EDT. Share on Facebook ...

For the past nine years, Iraqâ€™s security forces have tried to stop car bombs with a British-made bomb detector wand that was long ago proven to be fake. A day after a car bomb killed at least 157 people in central Baghdad, the countryâ€™s prime minister, Haidar al-Abadi, has demanded their withdrawal.After the single deadliest attack in Iraq this year, Abadi also ordered a renewed corruption investigation into the sale of the devices from 2007-10, which cost Iraq more than Â£53m and netted the Somerset businessman James McCormick enormous profits, as well as a 10-year jail sentence for fraud. Related: Fake bomb detector conman jailed for 10 years The cost to the Iraqi public will remain incalculable: the vast majority of the bombs that have killed and maimed at least 4,000 people since 2007 have been driven straight past police or soldiers using the devices at checkpoints. Their withdrawal follows years of insistence by interior ministry officials, who bought the wands at vastly inflated fees, that they were effective in sensing odours from explosive components.Near the scene of Sundayâ€™s bomb attack in the suburb of Karrada, which was claimed by Islamic State, Iraqis reacted with derision at the ban, which follows years of complaints from citizens and warnings by both the British government and US military that the wands have no scientific value.â€œThis should have happened a long time ago,â€ said Sheikh Qadhim al-Sayyed, standing near the scorched remains of a shopping district in Karrada, just south of the Tigris River. â€œThere isnâ€™t a person in the country who thinks they work. No one here is responsible for what they do. It should be an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Corruption is the greatest threat we face.â€Nearby, three federal policemen stood in the shade. â€œThey are fakes, fakes,â€ said one officer, Sayyed Hamza. â€œThey have been laughing at us by making us use them.â€ While he welcomed Abadiâ€™s announcement, he said, it was â€œpast dueâ€. In a statement, the prime minister said: â€œAll security forces must take away the handheld detectors from checkpoints and the (ministry of interior) must reopen the investigation for corruption in the contracts for these devices and follow all entities which participated in them.â€ Related: Isis will continue to kill in Iraq while thereâ€™s a corrupt political class | Ranj Alaaldin Abadi has made an anti-corruption drive an essential plank of his leadership, but has so far been met with strong resistance from members of parliament and senior bureaucrats. The interior ministry, which was responsible for the procurement of most of the wands, had already shelved an earlier inquiry.Some security officials were slow to respond to the order, still holding wands on Monday at approaches to the central city and along roads to the airport and the north. The reluctance to acknowledge them as useless was in part centred in having to acknowledge that there are few alternatives to keeping bombers away from Iraqâ€™s towns and cities.â€œSometimes it is better to pretend,â€ said one senior interior ministry official. â€œTo say that these donâ€™t work says that we donâ€™t have anything better. The people need some sort of reassurance.â€There was little comfort, though, for those standing near the rubble of the most deadly explosion in Baghdad this year. Investigators taking samples from the wreckage suggested that napalm, or a variation of it, may have been used in the blast that ignited huge fires in three-level shopping complexes on either side of a road. Related: What to expect from the Chilcot inquiry: revelation or whitewash? There was no crater at the scene of the explosion and damage to the buildings was mostly caused by fire, which forensic officials said was unusual for a bomb of this size.â€œWe have sent samples to 12 laboratories and some have come back positive for napalm, or a derivative of it,â€ said a senior official from Iraqâ€™s chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons unit. â€œIf our suspicions are confirmed, this would be the first time they have done this and it would mark a new phase.â€Crouched on a verge amid ash and soot, Sarfi Abdul Hassan, 73, a muezzin from a nearby Shia mosque, known as a Husseiniya, said his grandson had survived the inferno by hiding in a fridge. â€œHe was calling us from inside, but there was chaos all around and it was hard to find him. We eventually got to him. He is safe, but he is still vomiting now.He said: â€œI have lost two sons to car bombs. We need loyal men to protect us. Those who donâ€™t accept bribes and do accept responsibility for the nation, irrespective of their religion. Bring us some good men. Non-Muslims are fine.â€